The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 3GB GDDR5

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 3GB GDDR5

The new GeForce GTX 590 is a large graphics card, and it has to be, given that it has two GPUs on a single PCB. Fortunately, NVIDIA has thoughtfully kept its length to 11 inches. It’s still a long card but at least it's slightly smaller than comparable cards from AMD, which typically measure around 12 inches long. This one-inch difference in length also means that the GeForce GTX 590 will be able to fit into a wider variety of casings. When faced with a cramped casing, every inch and even millimeter counts!

If you’ve read our review of the Radeon HD 6990, you would find the design and concept of the cooler on the GeForce GTX 590 to be very similar. Like the Radeon HD 6990, the GeForce GTX 590 also has a centrally-located fan that sits between the two GPUs. Cool, fresh air is sucked in through the fan and then blown onto the two separately-contained copper vapor chamber coolers.

Due to this design, NVIDIA, like AMD, recommends leaving an expansion slot free if you wish to have two GeForce GTX 590 in an SLI configuration. To help users, they have thoughtfully complied a list of GeForce GTX 590 Quad SLI certified motherboards:

ASUS Maximus III Extreme

ASUS P6T7 WS Supercomputer

ASUS P8P67 Deluxe

ASUS P8P67 Pro

ASUS P8P67 WS Revolution

ASUS Rampage III Extreme

ASUS Rampage III Formula

ASUS Sabertooth P67

DFI LanParty_DK_P55_T3EH9

EVGA P55 E658

EVGA X58 FTW3

Gigabyte GA EX58 Extreme

Gigabyte GA-P55-UD5

Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD5

Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD7

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7

Gigabyte GA-X58-UD9

MSI Big Bang Trinergy

MSI P67A-GD65

MSI X58 PRO-E

Beyond the newly designed cooler, an aluminum baseplate is secured to the top of the board to cool the PCB and two other backplates are used to cool the graphics memory.